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Hakkar the Soulflayer
| instance=Zul'Gurub }} Hakkar the Soulflayer, Blood God of the Gurubashi trolls, is a malevolent and destructive creature that controls the Gurubashi Empire's fallen capital of Zul'Gurub. He is part of the troll pantheon, who are more powerful than elementals but not as powerful as gods. Background Hakkar is a powerful entity in the history of Azeroth, and old god to the trolls. Brann Bronzebeard believes that he may be a son of an Old God or even an Old God himself. The long centuries following the Great Sundering were difficult ones for the troll race. Famine and terror were commonplace within the broken kingdoms. The Gurubashi trolls, driven to desperate ends, sought aid from ancient, mystical forces. Though both of the troll kingdoms shared a central belief in a great pantheon of primitive gods, the Gurubashi fell under the sway of the darkest one. Hakkar the Soulflayer, a vile, bloodthirsty spirit, heard the trolls' call and decided to aid them. Hakkar gave his secrets of blood to the Gurubashi and helped them extend their civilization across most of Stranglethorn Vale and certain islands of the South Seas. Though he brought them great power, Hakkar wanted more and more for his efforts. The bloodthirsty god demanded souls be sacrificed to him daily. He dreamed of gaining access to the physical world so he could devour the blood of all mortal creatures. In time the Gurubashi realized what kind of creature they had courted with — and turned against him. The strongest tribes rose up against Hakkar and his loyal priests — the Atal'ai. The terrible war that ensued between Hakkar's followers and the rest of the Gurubashi tribes is spoken of only in whispers. The budding empire was shattered by the magic unleashed between the angry god and his rebel children. Just as the battle seemed most hopeless, the trolls succeeded in destroying Hakkar's avatar and banishing him from the world. Even his Atal'ai priests were eventually driven back to the capital of Zul'Gurub and the swamplands of the north. Though the priests were defeated and ultimately exiled, the great troll empire collapsed upon itself. The exiled priests fled far to the north, into the Swamp of Sorrows. There they erected a great temple to Hakkar — where they could prepare for his arrival into the physical world. The great dragon Aspect, Ysera, learned of the Atal'ai's plans and smashed the temple beneath the marshes. To this day, the temple's drowned ruins are guarded by the green dragons who prevent anyone from getting in or out. However, some of the fanatical Atal'ai have survived Ysera's wrath — and recommitted themselves to the dark service of Hakkar. Their spiritual leader, Jammal'an, had what he called a prophecy. He believed the summoning of Hakkar will bring the Atal'ai immortality. They even prepared a dark ritual to call the Avatar of Hakkar back into the physical world, but it was finally interrupted by a group of heroes, invading the temple. In recent times, the Atal'ai priests discovered that Hakkar's physical form could only be summoned within the ancient capital of the Gurubashi Empire, Zul'Gurub. Unfortunately, the priests have met with recent success in their quest to call forth Hakkar — reports confirm the presence of the dreaded Soulflayer in the heart of the Gurubashi ruins. In order to quell the Blood God, the trolls of the land banded together and sent a contingent of High Priests into the ancient city. Each priest was a powerful champion of the Primal Gods — Bat, Panther, Tiger, Spider, and Snake — but despite their best efforts, they fell under the sway of Hakkar. Now the champions and their Primal God aspects feed the awesome power of the Soulflayer. Any adventurers brave enough to venture into the foreboding ruins must overcome the High Priests if they are to have any hope of confronting the mighty blood god. The Vale Screechers are called the cousins of Hakkar, and their spirits seem to be linked to him. Abilities * Corrupted Blood: 875-1125 direct shadow damage plus a 200 every 2 seconds shadow DOT that hits a player and several players around. Corrupted Blood in its previous state has become well known due to the small scale epidemic it caused. Hunters and warlocks were able to infect their pets, dismiss them and call them outside the instance, thus releasing the disease to the outside world. Thousands of players (especially low leveled) were killed by this disease, and players had to flee to unpopulated areas to prevent infection. Soon, Blizzard had to reset all the servers to balance the system again. * Blood Siphon: Every 90 seconds from the time that Hakkar is pulled he will cast Blood Siphon on the entire raid. In its base state this is a 8 second channeled drain that deals 200 damage per second, stuns, and heals Hakkar for 1000 health per second. However, if the player has been infected with Poisonous Blood (released as a cloud around the corpse of a Son of Hakkar) then the Blood Siphon changes its effect. The stun remains but it now does 200 damage per second to Hakkar. Blood Siphon will appear as a debuff for each person affected. The number of these debuffs will remove nearly all existing ones. * Cause Insanity: A 10 second non-dispellable mind control with a 150% movement and 100% attack speed increase, this is cast approximately every 10 to 15 seconds on the person currently highest on the aggro list. While mind controlled, the person temporarily loses aggro - however he will re-gain aggro once mind control expires. * Enrage: After fighting for 10 minutes or at 5% health, Hakkar enrages, greatly increasing his damage output. This ability will generally wipe the raid. He will hit a Tier 1 plate warrior for a 7500 crushing blow. Hakkar's enrage does not seem to affect his defense, so he can still be killed if enough damage can be done to him before he kills everyone. * Will of Hakkar: Takes control of a humanoid enemy up to level 65 for 20 sec. If the High Priests around Zul'Gurub are not killed before Hakkar, then he is granted several powerful abilities which combine to make the fight near impossible. *High Priestess Jeklik (Bat Aspect) - 1200-2000 AoE damage + 8s silence. *High Priest Venoxis (Snake Aspect) - 800 damage poison to the raid. *High Priestess Mar'li (Spider Aspect) - 6 second stun against current aggro holder. (Prior to patch 1.12, there was additionally a complete aggro reset). *High Priest Thekal (Tiger Aspect) - Frenzy, increasing attack speed by 150%. *High Priestess Arlokk (Panther Aspect) - 2 second gouge (aggro wipes the main tank) Strategy The fight revolves around the Blood Siphon. You need to ensure that the entire raid is poisoned by a Son of Hakkar's poison cloud before each Siphon. To enable this, you will need one person to pull a fast re-spawning Son from the left and right platforms to the raid so it can be killed. The entire raid should get the poison from the ensuing cloud while ensuring that the entire raid is not poisoned for too long, due to the damage caused. There are two common strategies for this. # Using a hunter or mage to pull a Son a few seconds before the Siphon, then the raid kill this as soon as it arrives and gets the poison. # Using a hunter to pull a Son immediately after a Siphon (or prior to starting the fight) then to have this Son sheeped or hibernated near to the raid and killed several seconds before the Siphon is due. The Siphon process will remove the poison, so it is possible to keep the damage from the poison to a minimum if the Son is killed only very shortly before siphoning. It is important to pull a new son only AFTER the siphoning, if pulled before there is a risk of it unsheeping during the Siphon while everyone is defenseless. Hakkar himself needs to be held by 2 or 3 tanks due to him Mind Controlling the current tank, which will cause him to switch to next person on the aggro list. Hakkar's Mind Control is technically considered to be a Charm effect, so druid tanks are not immune to it. When a tank is Mind Controlled, he should be sheeped by a mage to prevent him causing too much damage to the raid. This sheep should be dispelled when Mind Control fades. Additionally, due to this Mind Control it is necessary to have warriors burn their Intimidating Shout as soon as it cools down to prevent the raid being feared. Hakkar will also frequently spit Corrupted Blood at members of the raid, dealing a large amount of shadow damage. Spreading the raid to limit the number of people who can be hit can help but also causes problems collapsing back to receive the poison. The best strategy is to keep the priests in the center rear, so they don't have to move around to get the poison, and spread the ranged DPS out to both sides, and closer to Hakkar. As with many boss fights, limiting the damage the AoE attack does it crucial. The Corrupted Blood attack does about 2000 points of damage to a player in total, and if 15 people get corrupted this means a total of 15,000-30,000 HP (depending on how fast it gets cleansed) which need to be healed. Since this happens every 20–30 seconds, this puts a massive load on the healers. The fight itself requires relatively little DPS, although there is a 10 min Enrage. Hakkar has about 745804 HP. He will do around 1/4 of the damage himself via Blood Siphon assuming everyone in the raid gets the Poisonous Blood each Siphon. As a worst case scenario no more than 3 people can be without the poison, or Hakkar will heal each Siphon. This goes without saying, but if at any time you're left with one tank, and the boss isn't at very low HP, a wipe is inevitable. Reset by running down the stairs. Hakkar's the first boss you'll come across that's untauntable, therefore it's impossible for a just-ressed tank to gain enough aggro to tank him - and, of course, he hits hard enough to make healing any randoms that get aggro during mind control into a nightmare. In order to prevent tank death, it is advisable to have at least 6 main healers in the raid. The majority of failures on Hakkar happen because of tank death. Note that Hakkar can be reset by pulling him down the stairs. Helpful macros Mage sheeping of Mind Controlled tanks Targets both Main Tanks and sheeps which ever is Mind Controlled. /tar MT1 /cast harm Polymorph(Rank 1) /tar MT2 /cast harm Polymorph(Rank 1) Place the names of your 2 tanks in for "MT1" and "MT2" (if you have more than 2 tanks then add additional lines for them) Priest/Paladin dispel of sheeped tanks This must be pressed twice. Once before the sheep breaks, and once after. NOTE: <> <> /cast target=focus,exists,help Dispel Magic /clearfocus target=focus,exists,help /tar MT1 /focus harm /tar MT2 /focus harm If you are a paladin, replace "Dispel Magic" with "Cleanse" and it will work. Again, place the names of your MTs in there, and add additional lines if you have additional MTs. At 70 It's possible, with a small raid and high DPS, to DPS through his Blood Siphon without the need for poisoning the raid. However, this does make the fight much more difficult. At 80 A small team of moderately-geared characters can rather easily kill a full-strength Hakkar (without killing any other bosses). A feral druid can easily solo this by hunkering down in Bear Form and keeping a steady Rejuvenation to heal themselves. This was done after soloing the 5 "main" bosses in ZG. Also, a Death Knight and Paladin can also solo it with Death Strike and self healing. Though, you have to have the damage to get him down before 10min enrage or you will die and it does take about 8-10mins to solo him. Tip for DK's - Make sure you arent spec'd for Bloodworms, and make sure you dont use a ghoul or Army of the Dead while fighting Hakkar. If you are the only one fighting Hakkar he wont use his MC ability. If Bloodworms or a ghoul is active, he WILL use his MC, and you will kill it(them) before the duration of the MC is up, thus causing him to reset, and fully heal. Quotes First player enters in Zul'Gurub: * Minions of Hakkar, hear your God. The sanctity of this temple has been compromised. Invaders encroach upon holy ground! The Altar of Blood must be protected. Kill them all! First player steps on the Altar of Blood: * You dare set foot upon Hakkari holy ground? Minions of Hakkar, destroy the infidels! Aggro: * PRIDE HERALDS THE END OF YOUR WORLD. COME, MORTALS! FACE THE WRATH OF THE SOULFLAYER! Mind control a player: * Fleeing will do you no good, mortals! Loot Trivia Faceless one According to the Zandalar troll Melthor, one of his titles is "The Faceless One". Though this in-game text specifically uses the words The Faceless One for Hakkar the Soulflayer, it not known if he has any connection with the creatures encountered beneath Northrend. See Faceless one for further information. Old God Speculation There is a possibility that Hakkar is actually an Old God. He is called an old god by the trolls, but many people maintain it is just a title given to him by his followers to represent his power and frighten their enemies. However, the concept that he is an Old God is supported by one of his other titles mentioned above, if the theory that Faceless ones are Old Gods is correct. The Corrupted Blood Incident Shortly after Zul' Gurub's original release several players across many servers found that his debuff, Corrupted Blood (which takes away health and is highly contagious, yet can't leave the instance on players) could be carried out on warlock minions or hunter pets. When they did this they unleashed a massive, in-game epidemic that killed low level players in seconds and allowed higher levels enough time to corrupt others. Blizzard, who didn't see it coming at first, eventually reset all the servers and made it impossible to carry it out on a pet. Houndmaster and Soulflayer According to an interview, Hakkar the Houndmaster and Hakkar the Soulflayer are two different entities: :Richard A. Knaak: :"Hakkar first existed in WELL OF ETERNITY, as Hakkar the Houndmaster, my creation. Blizzard must have liked the name, because they accidentally took the name afterward for the troll god. Chris Metzen apologized for the mix-up at the L.A. Festival of Books." Myth Physically, Hakkar seems to resemble the Mesoamerican deity "Quetzalcoatl" or "Kukulkan," both of which can be translated "Feathered Serpent". This fits in with certain aspects from troll architecture and culture, which resemble those of the Aztec and Maya, both of whom revered the Feathered Serpent. Unlike Hakkar however, Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl abhorred human sacrifice. External links Category:Bosses Category:Eternals Category:Loa Category:Lore characters Category:Zul'Gurub mobs